


Of Dependency

by Helicidae



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Jim's criminal empire, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:35:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helicidae/pseuds/Helicidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for The Reichenbach Fall.</p><p>Jim had always liked to be in control.  Always liked to know that in the end there was only one option left for Sebastian, for his empire, and that was to follow in his footsteps dancing to the tune in his genius, psychopath head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Dependency

Jim’s end has been offline for four hours now and the network is more than buzzing, it’s on fire. Sebastian makes some last minute calls on his way to the hospital but he knows, as he speaks, just as well as everyone on the other end knows, he’s only buying time.

Badly. Jim would have been able to buy all the time in the fucking world with a wave of his hand but Jim is a genius and psychopath and Sebastian is neither of those things. He is Jim’s right hand man not for qualifications but because Jim made him his right hand man. He knows half of Jim’s secrets (which is forty-nine per cent more than anyone else in the world) not because he’s worthy or could do anything with them but because Jim decided to tell him them.

He’s intelligent, of course he is, Jim never could stand stupidity. Sebastian could run rings around almost anyone, mentally or physically. He could kill a man or a wild tiger and get away with it. He could control a room of angry people, organise crimes to perfection. What he could not do, what only one man whose name was Jim fucking Moriarty could do, was make a criminal empire spanning tens of counties, employing hundreds of fulltime agents, fingers in countless families and businesses and governments, dance to his tune.

Which was probably why Jim had made him second in command in the first place, told him all of those things men would pay or kill (or both) to get. Because with that fucked up brain of his Jim didn’t need anyone else, certainly not Sebastian, but he never could resist the opportunity to screw someone over.

Sebastian’s running up the stairs to get to the roof, he can’t help it.

Jim’s dead body is like a knife to the back, a spewing great betrayal.

Because now he’s not second in command any more, he’s first, and the only reason he’d been safe as second was because Jim had made it so. He’s a sniper, not a godforsaken businessman. He’s suddenly alone at the head of a parade that’s going to turn into a stampede as soon as this gets out; no one but Jim could hold everything together but that doesn't mean they won’t try. Moriarty’s empire is going to tear itself apart trying to realign and Sebastian Moran won’t stand a fucking chance.

“You cunt,” he says to Jim’s body, with feeling. “You selfish cunt.”

His throat is tight and dry and he hunkers down out of the way of the best sniping positions. Jim’s round black eyes stare at him, glassy. There are a couple of flies around the blood on the floor and crawling in Jim’s mouth.

What can he do? Only a tiny handful of people knew that Jim was here – he’d slipped off the radar in ways only he could. Sebastian had made sure those handful were now dead but it won’t be long before his own footprints are traced, the damning conclusion made.

He is already dead. He’ll be caught, what information they can wring out of him will be wrung, and he’ll be sold on to the next lot. It will carry on until he goes absolutely insane, the quality of his information slips, and no one reckons they can somehow dig out some gem that all the previous lot failed to find.

He is breathing hard. The world seems like it’s narrowing down into a nightmare tunnel with no way out – only not seem to, it is. On his knees he crawls the couple of feet to Jim’s body and grips his face, moist and cool. Jim’s mouth slides open at the pressure on his jaws, a not bad impression of his idiot face when he’d been alive if not for the flies and the now visible entry wound.

Sebastian grips harder and pulls Jim up by his head just to smash it back down again. Blood and gore splatters and there’s a cracking sound but he doesn’t care; he does it again.

“Damn you,” he spits, can’t control himself any longer. “Fuck you to Hell, Jim. You selfish cunt, you bastard.”

Jim’s head becomes soft on the impact, skull breaking and fragments crushing into that brain of his. Sebastian stands and kicks him, hard, in the chest, in the stomach. His breath is whistling.

Jim should have been invincible. That it was a suicide feels like it’s the only thing that’s keeping Sebastian’s world together because of course, the only one who could ever best Jim is Jim him-fucking-self. Jim who just has to take everyone down with him.

“Fuck you, Jim.” His voice is tight. “Fuck you. I wanted to live.”

He’s on borrowed time, he has been since Jim offed himself, and he really shouldn’t be spending it beating up a corpse. He digs his foot into the side of Jim’s face but can’t quite manage to crush or kick; he shoves Jim aside instead and locks the door to the roof on his way down.

There’s one of Jim’s money launderers nearby and he breaks into her flat, takes all the cash he can find. It’s not much – she does real estate after all, not bulk smuggling, but it’s enough. She’s not there; Sebastian doesn’t know whether the disappearance of her money or the appearance of her dead body would have made more of a commotion and he leaves as quickly as possible. He buys a change of wardrobe in the closest CCTV blind spot he knows of and takes a cab, loses his coat in the cab and switched to a bus. He goes to Notting Hill where there’s a safehouse and grabs more cash and a fake passport, a new phone and credit card.

There’s something bubbling inside of him, something wild and clawing at his insides. His life is over but it’s not that.

He trusts none of his connections not to turn him in, even though it's been scant hours and surely the more distant branches won’t know he’s a wanted man now. He flies to Tianjin then comes straight back to Europe, changes his passport and cards again as soon as possible. He doesn’t know why he’s running. He’s on a dead end track and the only question left is when.

Jim had always liked to be in control. Always liked to know that in the end there was only one option left for Sebastian, for his empire, and that was to follow in his footsteps dancing to the tune in his genius, psychopath head.

Sebastian knows what that tune sounds like; he’d heard it often enough. Jim’s composition, he’s sure. It lulls and rises like fire and embers, the crescendo like tigers; it appeared when Jim thought, when meeting with clients. Murmured in his sleep. Not even beating him into the mattress could break its panted tempo.

Jim listened to and hated other music, but that was only for show.

The net closes, inevitable, and they catch up with him in Switzerland of all places. Sebastian doesn’t know how glad he is that the dead end finally comes into sight. He hasn’t slept for days but for half hour snatches here and there; he hasn’t eaten a solid meal in longer. His cigarettes ran out long ago with the last of his money.

He catches wind of them before they can corner him in his hotel room but in the streets at night is hardly better. There’s likely no way out of this hellhole that isn’t watched, the roads and railway both actively guarded. In under an hour they’ll have found his empty room; by morning they’ll have tracked him down. It’ll be over before noon.

He’d blow them all up together if only he had the explosives. He doesn’t; he used the last of them escaping a previous lot in Hildesheim – a shoddy job all around and he was lucky he still had all his limbs attached. All he has with him is his gun, one magazine and the clothes on his back. The magazine is half empty, the coat he stole is too thin and he’s shivering, legs unwilling to run just that bit further. His body is giving up the ghost, it seems.

He slumps down by a wall in some street, feeling his hands go numb. No, that’s not the cold or lack of sleep or food. A sedative. Somehow they must have slipped him a sedative, planned to wait and pick up his body while he was out. Sebastian chuckles and it sounds hoarse to his own ears.

He doesn’t believe in God, Heaven or Hell, doesn’t believe in an afterlife. For all of his talk about it, Sebastian knows Jim didn’t either. There won’t be shaking hands tonight, no reunion in Hell.

Jim’s tune is playing in the back of his head. He must have lost it, finally.

He’s not in the busiest part of the town so it’s a while before someone finds him. Sebastian recognises the cunt immediately, even through blurred eyes. It’s over, then, he’s reached his dead end. As the man approaches him he stands with difficulty, leaning heavily against the wall. The crescendo peaks; Sebastian puts his gun in his mouth, fires.


End file.
